"I tell you you'd better go!" insisted the guardian of the forest. "I'm supposed to keep trespassers off, an' I'm goin' t' do it, too!" Evidently he did not like the looks of the girls whispering together. Perhaps he may have imagined that there was a conspiracy to kidnap him and take possession of the property in dispute. He moved nearer to the girls, the dog following him.
Grace uttered a little cry.
"Now I ain't a-goin' fer t' hurt ye!" exclaimed the man, "an' I don't want t' be no harsher than I have t' be, but you folks must move back, else I'll have t' make ye go. I'm on guard here, and——"
"Oh, we'll go," said Betty quickly, "but I don't see what harm we were doing. The woods seem all alike to me."
"Well, mebbe ye wasn't doin' no particular harm," admitted the man in surly tones, "but my orders is to keep trespassers off, an' I'm goin' t' do it!"
"It's hard to tell where Mr. Ford's land ends and Mr. Jallow's begins," said Mollie, looking for some sign of a boundary mark. The man started.
"Be you folks from Ford's camp?" he asked, quickly.
"Yes," said Grace, taking heart, perhaps, at the mention of her father's name. "I am Miss Ford."
"Well, I'm sorry, but now you'll have to go quicker than if you was some one else!" said the man firmly. "I thought you was jest ordinary folks, but I've got very strict orders not to let Mr. Ford nor nobody who represents him, set foot on this land. So that's your game; is it?" and he leered at them.
"Game! We don't know what you mean!" said Mollie with asperity. "We certainly are up to no game."